Auctions provide a popular and exciting marketplace for the buying and selling of property. Recently, computerized auctions that take place over the Internet have become very popular. Such Internet auctions often include the sale of items ranging from sporting event tickets to fine art to stuffed animals.
Such computerized and Internet auctions typically include the maintenance of a computer server or servers that maintains a database of product information, maintains an identification of different products to be auctioned, is capable of promoting the products and the designated time of the auction prior to the auction to increase awareness of the product, conduct the auction itself, arrange for payment of the products by the buyer, and arrange for transfer of the products by the seller. Examples of such consumer auctions are available from several companies on the Internet, such as Ebay, Yahoo, and Bid.com.
Despite the proliferation of consumer auctions that are available to the general population for common consumer products, a different type of auction that requires a different method of conduct involves the sale or transfer of property by government agencies. Unlike the typical consumer auction, the transfer of property by government agencies through an auction often involves several considerations that, to date, have not been adequately addressed by the computerized auctions in place. Further, the current method of conducting auctions of property by government agencies fails to address numerous problems, which are discussed below, and has resulted in inefficiencies that prevent the government agencies from obtaining the optimal price for its property and has increased the expense associated with the asset disposition process.
Government agencies often possess or acquire several types or categories of property that must be sold or otherwise disposed of. Such property is typically segregated into four types of property called excess property, surplus property, unclaimed property, and confiscated property. Depending on the particular asset to be sold, government regulations and procedures often dictate that government agencies must follow certain guidelines, which generally include a hierarchy of persons or organizations that are eligible to purchase the asset. For example, pursuant to government restrictions, the agencies may be required to make certain assets available to particular communities, such as other specific government organizations, before the general public is allowed to bid on the property. In other words, the property is offered in a sequential manner that provides preferred access to the asset to specified organizational communities such as other government agencies, and non-profit organizations. In addition to the community restrictions, these guidelines may also include asset restrictions, which may limit access to a particular asset to people with certain licenses or permits. For example, if a government agency wishes to dispose of surplus dynamite, only those with permits to handle explosives will be allowed to bid on the property.
Large governments must dispose of thousands of items worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year by way of auctions. The following is a brief explanation of the different types of government property that would typically be auctioned according to the method of the present invention. One type of property that was mentioned above is excess property. This includes property that is excess to an agency's needs, but which may have value to other government agencies or non-profit organizations. Another type of property is called surplus property, which is excess property that is not transferred to another government agency or non-profit organization. In addition to the disposition of excess and surplus property, governments must be able to dispose of property which has come into their possession from private individuals and organizations. This type of property generally comes in two forms: (1) unclaimed property from deceased individuals who left estates with no wills and no heirs, and (2) property confiscated from individuals and organizations as a consequence of their performing illegal activities. Each of these types of property must be disposed of according to the government agency restrictions.
Previously, no method for efficiently profiling or screening potential purchasers to make certain they satisfy the restrictions designated by the sellers has been available in computerized auctions. The present invention provides a method for greatly enhancing the efficiency of profiling or screening potential purchasers and for performing government auctions, thereby enabling the greatest number of qualified buyers access to and information about property to be sold by government agencies.
The existing government processes for checking that potential buyers satisfy each agency's restrictions, and for disposing of such excess, surplus, unclaimed, and confiscated property has been manual and paper intensive. Such a manual and paper intensive process is highly inefficient and results in several problems. Under the present method of disposing of assets by government agencies there is a very limited dissemination of information on available property. Therefore, auctions for assets held by government agencies are often sparsely attended by potential buyers. Government auctions to such a limited number of purchasers usually results in the property being sold for a much lower price than could be obtained if the auction was attended by a greater number of interested buyers. In order to ensure that the government obtains the best possible price within the structure of the regulations, property must be made available for public auction to the widest possible number of authorized buyers. It is also important that the property be disposed of in a timely manner and for the best possible value in order to minimize inventory carrying costs and maximize revenues.
One hurdle facing the efficient disposition of assets held by government agencies is matching eligible buyers with particular assets when they become available. With the auctions for government-held property that were previously conducted, there was no automatic dissemination of information about available property to all or even a majority of potentially interested bidders. Further, there did not exist an automatic means for determining which buyers were eligible to participate in an auction for a particular asset. Moreover, the time required for processing the information for the potential bidders to determine whether the buyer satisfies the government restrictions can be lengthy and create a great deal of undue uncertainty for both buyer and seller. The manual processing of the required information causes further delays in disposing of the property and thereby increases the inventory and storage costs.
The current auction methodology for government-held property also creates many inefficiencies for potential buyers. For instance, sellers are not provided an easy means to notify potential buyers when items of particular interest are made available for auction. Another problem with the current method is that in order to participate, interested buyers typically need to physically attend the various auctions. This may cause problems and lost opportunities due to the geographical location of the auction relative to the potential buyer. In situations where a buyer need not be present, the buyer is generally not provided with photographs of the property, and is therefore limited in his or her inspection of the property. Potential bidders must also submit their personal information on numerous occasions to several separate government agencies, thereby creating unnecessary duplicative efforts as well as increasing the opportunities for error. Moreover, because the various governments conduct auctions in non-standardized manners, potential buyers may believe that they are ineligible to participate in one auction because of the restrictions of a different governmental entity. Therefore, potential buyers may miss out on opportunities to which they may have held an interest and for which they were eligible because of this mistaken belief.
Under the current method of conducting government auctions, it is often the case that the auctions are attended by only a handful of people or organizations, as opposed to the much larger pool of authorized and interested buyers. This inability to efficiently process and disseminate information about the auctions results in a substantial loss of revenue to the government agency.